Friday, November 14, 2008

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

British news paper salutes Canada . . . this is a good read. It isfunny how it took someone in England to put it into words...Sunday Telegraph Article From today's UK wires:Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, 'The SundayTelegraph' LONDON :

Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probablyalmost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadiantroops are deployed in the region.

And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of theworld, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgetsnearly everything Canada ever does.. It seems that Canada 's historicmission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and ofcomplete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well andtruly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of thehall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A firebreaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow dance-goers,and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is repaired and thedancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower still, while thoseshe once helped Glamorously cavort across the floor, blithelyneglecting her yet again.

That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American continentwith the United States , and for being a selfless friend of Britain intwo global conflicts.

For much of the 20th century, Canada was torn in two differentdirections: It seemed to be a part of the old world, yet had anaddress in the new one, and that divided identity ensured that itnever fully got the gratitude it deserved.

Yet it's purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom in twoworld wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy. Almost 10% ofCanada 's entire population of seven million people served in thearmed forces during the First World War, and nearly 60,000 died. Thegreat Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded by Canadian troops,perhaps the most capable soldiers in the entire British order ofbattle.

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright neglect,it's unique contribution to victory being absorbed into the popularMemory as somehow or other the work of the 'British.'

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began thewar with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly half ofthe Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120 Canadian warshipsparticipated in the Normandy landings, during which 15,000 Canadiansoldiers went ashore on D-Day alone.

Canada finished the war with the third-largest navy and the fourthlargest air force in the world. The world thanked Canada with thesame sublime indifference as it had the previous time.

Canadian participation in the war was acknowledged in film only if itwas necessary to give an American actor a part in a campaign in whichthe United States had clearly not participated - a touchingscrupulousness which, of course, Hollywood has since abandoned, as ithas any notion of a separate Canadian identity.

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving inHollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are Canadian.Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland, Michael J. Fox,William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, ArtLinkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in the popular perception becomeAmerican, and Christopher Plummer, British.

It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a Canadian ceases tobe Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood, who is as unshakablyCanadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for whom Canada has proved quiteunable to find any takers.

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the achievementsof its sons and daughters as the rest of the world is completelyunaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of themselves - and areunheard by anyone else - that 1% of the world's population hasprovided 10% of the world's peacekeeping forces.

Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the greatestpeacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates, and six onnon-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East Timor, from Sinai toBosnia.

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popularnon-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in whichout-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators. Theirregiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely Canadian act ofself-abasement for which, naturally, the Canadians received nointernational credit.

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and selflessfriendship its northern neighbour has given it in Afghanistan ?

Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly does honourablethings for honourable motives, but instead of being thanked for it, itremains something of a figure of fun. It is the Canadian way, forwhich Canadians should be proud, yet such honour comes at a high cost.This past year more grieving Canadian families knew that cost all tootragically well.